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Class 

Book— 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSHV 



WHILLIKINS 

First published in December, 1913. 




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WHILLIKINS 

.-. A STUDY IN .: 
SOCIAL HYSTERIA 



BY 

ELMER WILLIS SERL 

Author of "Swaying Tree Tops," "The Laughter 

of Jesus," and "The Fraternity of the Fields," 

books published by this house. 




NEW YORK 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1913 






Copyright, 1913, by 
The Neale Publishing Company 



JAN 10 !9!4 



<^Ci.A3G2089 



CONTENTS 

I 
JUST WHILLIKINS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Logic of the Skim 9 

II 
WHILLIKINS —THE SOCIALITE 

I Sarcasm? Maybe 17 

II The Big Fight 19 

III "Don't Spit Here. Man Below" . . 23 

IV Overalls and the White Vest . . .27 
V Why Don't They Eat Cake? ... 28 

VI Camp-Meeting Hot Air 34 

VII The Worker Problem 37 

VIII How About Indemnity for the Em- 
ployer? 41 

IX The Latest Combine 44 

X Professorial Punk 50 

XI Some Foolishness from Edward Carpen- 
ter 61 

XII A Little Wisdom from Edward Carpen- 
ter 66 



CONTENTS 

III 
WHILLIKINS — THE QUEER 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Tact or Do-Nothingism 71 

II Modern Business vs. Real Business . 74 

III The Political Leech 81 

IV Cut It Out 84 

V The Narrowness of the Broad . . .87 

IV 
WHILLIKINS —THE RECREATIONIST 
I He Ran Him Down to Death ... 93 
II Why the Motion Picture Show . . 98 

V 
WHILLIKINS,— THE RELIGIOUS 

I On Delivering the Cattle . . . .105 

II "Give 'Em the 'Rousements" . . . 109 

III Boston Buddhism or Baked Beans . .113 

IV The Pink Minister 117 

V How Any Minister May Succeed . .120 



JUST WHILLIKINS 



WHILLIKINS 

CHAPTER I 

THE LOGIC OF THE SKIM 

The other night the dairyman cheerfully 
announced that hereafter he would charge 
one-third of a cent more a quart. He ex- 
plained that Whillikins was charging a cent 
and two-thirds more and therefore — Since 
Whillikins had seen fit to jump five-thirds 
of a cent, surely our dairyman could jump 
one-third without spilling any water out of 
the can. 

It seems that the trouble lies with Whilli- 
kins and not with our milkman. 

It does not cost any more, if as much, for 
fodder now than it did a year ago; so in- 
creased cost of fodder cannot be given as the 
reason for the increased price of milk. Yes, 
the trouble must lie with Whillikins. 

I think that Whillikins says that he delivers 

9 



io WHILLIKINS 

what is nowadays called "certified milk," 
"sanitary milk," or some sort of extraordinary 
milk. And Whillikins sees in this a chance 
to soak the consumer. When Whillikins 
does this, then every other milkman does 
likewise, to an extent varying with the prob- 
able sanitariness of his product. 

A while ago a state dairy inspector and ad- 
vocate of pure milk got of! the train in our 
town and spent enough days with us to stir 
up the contents of every milk can in the county. 
Next, by the use of the newspapers he got us 
all eager to look into the milk cans. We did 
so, and then we all said in concert, "Milkman! 
milkman! You must clean your cow stables 
and your boots, and you must wash your 
hands." 

There was some growling from those who 
did not believe in being too near to God, — at 
least, when they were around cow stables. 
But we kept chanting our refrain over and 
over as the inspector waved his baton, and at 
length several milkmen bought a piece of 
Kirk's. 

We then subsided from our concert per- 
formance. The inspector departed, leaving 
some certified bottle stoppers with the milk- 



JUST WHILLIKINS n 

men, and life and milk flowed on in our town 
as before. Eve happened to have a few milk 
tickets ahead in a teacup in the cupboard, and 
as we poured our certified cream on our ster- 
ilized grape nuts we said: "This is cream. 
This is like the cream we used to get back on 
the farm. That inspector is a blessingful 
boon to a town such as ours." 

Presently the old supply of tickets was ex- 
hausted, and when Eve put the customary dol- 
lar in the bottle on the porch for a new supply 
she found that she received one pint-ticket 
short. Inquiry brought the information I 
gave at the beginning of this chapter. "Milk 
costs a third of a cent more now since Whilli- 
kins charges five-thirds more." Whillikins is 
the goat. 

It seems then that we milk consumers are 
paying the milk producers to wash their hands 
and clean their stables and their boots. Ac- 
cording to this, dirt is one-third of a cent 
cheaper. 

Now, as an individual who wishes to live 
and let live, I do not want any compulsory 
discounts. I believe that every producer of 
milk, potatoes, chickens, or books, should have 
a reasonable price for his product. I object, 



12 WHILLIKINS 

however, to the fallacy that cleanliness and 
sanitary living should be made the excuse for 
increasing the price of the necessities of life. 
If a man wishes to raise the price of an article 
of food which he produces, he may; but I do 
not want him to tell me that he does it because 
soap costs money. If he does, he indirectly 
tells me that he is a dirty goat by disposition. 
And I know that such a man will be just as 
dirty as he dares, even if I pay him five-thirds 
of a cent more a quart for milk, He ought not 
to be in the milk business, or in the potato 
business, or in the chicken business, or in the 
book business. He ought to have a job clean- 
ing sewers. There are scores and scores of 
producers of pure food articles who think just 
as I do, and it is for their defense, as well 
as for the consumer's, that I write this. 

There are well-meaning people who think 
that the sanitary problem is a social one. 
They say that the social movement for sani- 
tary foodstuff is proof of the worth of the so- 
cial movement; or in other words, that with- 
out any social agitation there is always dirty 
milk. I reply, that with the social move- 
ment there is always just as dirty milk as 
the milkman dares give, and meanwhile there 



JUST WHILLIKINS 13 

is a five-thirds of a cent increase in price, — - 
unless the dairyman is an individual who be- 
lieves in soap. And if he does, his milk was 
sanitary before the inspector visited our town. 
He had the soap on the inside of him, and his 
hands were clean. 

Just here is where the whole social move- 
ment fails. It does not put the soap where 
it belongs first, and it causes the five-thirds of 
a cent increase in price of milk. 

When the individual movement prevails, a 
man will consider soap an essential, no matter 
whether he produces milk or books; and he 
will prefer to produce clean milk at five- 
thirds of a cent less a quart than dirty milk at 
five-thirds of a cent more a quart. He would 
rather produce clean books which sell mod- 
erately than "Three Weeks" which sells by 
the hundred thousand. 

Cleanliness is next to Godliness only when 
the individual is instinctively sanitary. 

To be clean is possible without big wages, 
increased food prices, and a bank account. 
Yet to-day clean food, cleanly produced and 
cleanly prepared, is made the excuse for ex- 
orbitant prices. If we could all get the soap 
on the inside of ourselves, there would be 



i 4 WHILLIKINS 

clean dish-rags, and clean kitchens, and milk- 
pans, and boots, and stables, and grocery 
stores, and meat shops, and restaurants; and 
instead of a five-thirds of a cent increase there 
would be a five-thirds of a cent decrease in the 
cost of living. The saving by cleanliness 
more than pays for the cost of the soap. Dirt 
out of place is waste. Please tell that to 
Whillikins. 



II 

WHILLIKINS,— THE SOCIALITE 



CHAPTER I 

SARCASM? MAYBE 

Let us estimate our social resources. Are 
we wise, or are we foolish? Are we fortu- 
nate, or are we unfortunate? 

We have health in spite of unwillingness 
to exercise, which is good. We have cloth- 
ing and food and an opportunity to overstock 
the market with these things, and, — with a 
little care not to distribute them properly, — 
we can charge more for them than they are 
worth and so make money, which causes sat- 
isfaction. There is work for every man who 
wants to work, there are good wages, and a 
chance to spend them foolishly, which is 
rightly named personal liberty, — a liberty that 
no one may safely curtail. 

We live in a Christian land which toler- 
ates the scamp as well as the saint. We live 
in a day of reform. It is popular to reform 
something, and if the supply of muck does 
not peter out, it looks as though we might en- 

17 



18 WHILLIKINS 

joy the blessings of reformation for some time 
yet. 

We still have political parties to which we 
may belong, which give us opportunity to lam- 
baste each other and to say slanderous things 
under the mantle of party spirit, which means 
safety for the libeler. Again, our parties af- 
ford us opportunity for dissension and fur- 
nish problems. Thus it appears that we shall 
not be without a jumping-jingo's equipment 
for some time. 

We have so many applicants for every po- 
litical office that we do not have to exert our- 
selves looking for them. We toss the offices 
out into the highway, letting the applicants 
scramble for them, knowing well that after 
the scramble no office will be lying unpos- 
sessed. 

Altogether, as you may readily see, our re- 
sources for this business of life are varied 
and many. But I wonder if the devil keeps 
the books ! 



CHAPTER II 

THE BIG FIGHT 

The big fight is not between Jeffries and 
Johnson. No! No! It is between a white 
and a black principle. The big fight to-day is 
for freedom of utterance on social questions. 

The man who, without fear, speaks out on 
social questions is likely to be chased if he 
will run. 

The liberty of utterance needed to-day is 
not on theological themes. There are peo- 
ple who will grant you freedom to express 
yourself on miracles done in Palestine nine- 
teen hundred years ago, but when you talk 
about the miracle of the growing brother- 
hood of to-day they will remove your epi- 
dermis if you do not have a tendency to care- 
fulness. Most churches to-day will grant to 
their ministers liberty to follow St. Paul about 
Asia Minor and even to talk back at Paul, but 
when the minister comes home and says a 
word or two about present-day social un- 

19 



20 WHILLIKINS 

righteousness, the people, who think that they 
are the church, will rise and open the trap- 
door. 

There is no difficulty in winning the com- 
mendation of the heaven-hereafter hopers. 
One needs merely to talk about the birds of 
paradise and of the wing-traveling over yon- 
der. 

But one runs risks unnamed when he says 
that heaven hereafter depends upon heaven 
here, and that social service and social sani- 
tation are the conditions of an individual en- 
trance to immortality. 

In community life the human parasites 
thrive and multiply. They live because 
legitimate interests give them the privi- 
lege. These business interests, along with all 
other community interests, suffer as a result of 
the parasites. But woe unto the man who says 
so, — who presumes to point out to legitimate 
business the parasites that crawl over it. 
Business men to-day, — eight out of ten of them, 
at least, — will give the stony stare when they 
meet him who has pointed out the vermin on 
the back of business. But business men will 
shell out gladly for the uplift of the heathen 
who fringe the Sahara. 



THE SOCIALITE 21 

One can, with a sense of safety, plead the 
cause of a naked Hottentot baby. Let him, 
however, plead the cause of a half-naked baby 
of a saloon-ruined family in America, and the 
piety of ample abdomen will grind its axe. 

No large intelligence is needed to be politi- 
cally popular. If you hanker after that, just 
commend the judicial astuteness of Balaam's 
traveling companion. Stand by the party, 
right or wrong — generally wrong. Be a 
stand-patter, no matter how much green scum 
collects on your intellectual pond. Feed the 
political parasites just as your grand-daddy 
did. 

On the other hand, should you have an in- 
discreet inclination to wish to count one in 
political economy, defend the doctrine of 
democratic independence, and proclaim your 
belief in the idea that political leadership is 
only for service of the state, you would not 
be notified that Tuesday was election day. 

I knew a man who was out of town on the 
registration days and who stood in line three 
hours on the day appointed for delayed reg- 
istration. When he came at length into the 
august presence of the bottle-built registra- 
tion board they told him that his excuse was 



22 WHILLIKINS 

inexcusable. As he went out he saw Red 
Nose Charley, whose price was $2.00, allowed 
registration with much courtesy. 

The big fight to-day is for liberty of ex- 
pression in churches, among business interests, 
and in political life. The liberty of expres- 
sion we must have is on social righteousness. 
Theological themes will keep in cold storage, 
but lively social themes need discussion now. 



CHAPTER III 

"don't spit here, man below" 

The other week as I was passing along a 
Denver street I saw a sign over a grating in 
the sidewalk. It bore the words which head 
this chapter. I take it that the sign grew out 
of the experience of the man below. Neces- 
sity inspired the text. 

The Man Below has originated more re- 
forms than the Man Above whose life story- 
goes into the school readers ; yet half the time 
we never see him. The rattle of his shovel 
or the banging of boxes is about the only way 
we become aware of his presence. 

The Man Above, sprinting by about his 
upper-air pursuits, does not hear the racket 
below, so he spits through the grating. For 
that matter, I don't know that it would make 
any difference if he did hear the racket. He 
would probably spit anyhow. 

The Man Below growls a great deal these 
days. But so would you, brother of man, if 
you were below the grating. 

33 



24 WHILLIKINS 

It makes a great deal of difference on which 
side of the grating your job takes you. 

Put below the grating the manicured, pink- 
cheeked, tailor-pressed, composed office mag- 
nate, loved of man and woman, and he would 
growl like thirty bears, even if no one spit 
his way oftener than once in sixty days. 

It seems to me that it would be pretty hard 
to work below that grating, with the possi- 
bility of an unintermittent expectoration from 
above. I have never been down there at a 
permanent job. I never even went a-slum- 
ming. Nor have I secured a job among the 
toilers in order to get copy for lectures, maga- 
zines, or sermons. I have never ridden the 
blind baggage with London, nor nosed about 
slaughter-pens with Sinclair, nor turned 
tramp with Flyndt, nor worked at odd jobs 
across the continent with Wyckoff. 

Nor have I ever, that I can remember, spit 
through a grating on the Man Below. 

However, just by use of my imagination, I 
think it would be unpleasant, — to say noth- 
ing of unhealthful, — below the grating. 

The Man Below has a right to be heard. 
I am glad he raises a rumpus till he gets a 
sign up. I do not care how many street-cor- 



THE SOCIALITE 25 

ner harangues he makes. I always stop and 
listen to him, and whenever he bears the in- 
disputable marks of the heedlessness and the 
vileness of those above I take sides with him. 
Unfortunately, you cannot always tell for sure 
about the justice of his plaint. There are 
those who have got into the habit of telling 
all about how they were treated below the 
grating who were never down there. 

But when sincerity gets on a box at a street 
corner I pipe up from the amen corner. 

I said that most reforms originated down 
below. I think that is true. Fat, full-fed 
brewers above don't carry on the temperance 
reform. The sufferers and their sympa- 
thizers, spit on from the brewers' autos, urge 
that reform. 

The optimistic monopolist did not start the 
Federal investigations of corporations. The 
consumer below the grating set up his groan- 
ing and anathemas first. The stand-patter did 
not backslide from the faith of things as they 
are. It was the insurgent, tired of being spit 
on, who did that. 

Christianity did not have its beginning in a 
synagogue above on a hill ; it started in a car- 
penter shop in the valley. 



26 WHILLIKINS 

I am glad the Man Below has had and 
still has a voice. Aren't you? 

But don't think that I think that the Man 
Below is the custodian of all righteousness. 
He is wrong sometimes. Everybody is wrong 
some of the time. The Man Above who spits 
below is wrong. The Man Below who howls 
when nobody has spit through the grating is 
wrong. 

And you can take this as an uninspired 
truth, — that the presence of that grated hole 
is a monstrous wrong. That hole should be 
filled up; then the Man Below and the Man 
Above would get acquainted. 

Getting acquainted is the solution of the 
social problem. 



CHAPTER IV 

OVERALLS AND THE WHITE VEST 

Manual labor is no less dignified than men- 
tal labor. It should be held in no less esteem. 
It will not be held in less honor when manual 
labor and mental labor are combined. The 
trouble is they are too often separated. 

The hands grow calloused while the mind 
grows soft; or the mind grows calloused while 
the hands grow soft. Keep the manual la- 
borer always in overalls and the mental la- 
borer always in a white vest, and you will al- 
wa}^s keep the labor and social problem. But 
let the mental laborer sometimes don overalls, 
and the manual laborer sometimes slip on a 
white vest, and society will have been eased 
of controversy and of war. 

The labor and social tragedy of to-day has 
three actors : the man afraid to sweat his body, 
the man afraid to sweat his mind, and the 
devil. The last personage walks arm in arm 
between the other two. 

37 



CHAPTER V 

WHY DON'T THEY EAT CAKE? 

A question asked by a certain female aris- 
tocrat, when it was reported to her that people 
were starving for lack of bread, is quoted with 
more or less frequency by those who pretend 
to be the prophet deliverers of the proletaire. 
The question was "Why don't they eat cake?" 
There is always a poorly concealed, satisfied 
u te-hee" following the reference to that clas- 
sic question. As if that soft and silly woman 
really did not know that where bread was 
lacking cake was probably lacking also! 

I have not come to the defense of the would- 
be queen. I do not care whether she was 
really a fool or but seemed to be one. How- 
ever, there is a sense in which that question 
was not so rawly naive as seems apparent at 
first glance. It suggests a possibility. Ver- 
ily, why did the hungry not eat cake? Prob- 
ably they could have done so if — there is 
always an "if" of course. In this case the 

28 



THE SOCIALITE 29 

"if" leads to an unusual subjunctive. It is 
possible that those without bread might have 
had cake had they desired. 

I do not advocate the sad satisfaction of the 
socialite, — if I may coin a word. I urge the 
initiative of the individual. I believe that 
there are thousands of people breadless who 
might be eating cake. I do not mean that 
cake is a sufficient or a proper diet. I merely 
accept the current conception of life plus, and 
say that life minus carries with it its own re- 
sponsibility. Certain people who are dirty, 
disgruntled, and devilish could eat cake if 
they wanted to. They are chewing tobacco, 
and smoking, and drinking beer, and eating 
penny ice cream cones, and going to picture 
shows, and giving up their chances for cake. 
They are not objects for pity. They are sub- 
jects for truth. 

The problem of the proletaire is no prob- 
lem at all. It is a deficiency north of the 
neck. It is such a deficiency both in the prob- 
lem-solvers and in the so-called problem- 
folks. 

For the man without bread a municipal 
bake shop is a "nice" thing. For those who 
establish and run it the municipal bake shop 



3 o WHILLIKINS 

is a "darling" idea. "Nice" things for the 
proletaire and darling ideas for the socialite! 
So goes the pen-pusher's propaganda. 

In order to get the proper effect there is 
always a contrast arranged between the slum 
and the not-slum, between the hand toilers 
and the other workers, — only there are no 
other workers according to the socialite. 

Louis Baury, in an article in the Bookman 
a while ago, built up a background of Christ- 
mas plenty among the comfortable, and then 
placed against it the slum necessity. That 
article was a sample of current journalistic 
reporting. To say anything to-day about the 
deficiencies of life the average writer, — or 
agitator, — thinks that he must use all the 
oh-dear-me phraseology available. That is 
why we do not get anywhere with our prob- 
lem. We melodramatically howl and pose. 

There is a picture by Bradford Ker entitled, 
"From the Depths." It shows a banquet 
hall, — linen, candles, statuary, women decol- 
lettees, men shirt-bosomed a la mode. The 
dining is going merrily, boisterously on. The 
lower part of the picture gives a view be- 
neath the floor. There innumerable human 
beings, male and female, support on their bent, 



THE SOCIALITE 31 

naked, sweat-smeared backs, the tessellated 
pavement. One giant of the proletaire has 
thrust his clenched fist upward through the 
floor, and fright, panic, scurry, overturned 
chairs and candelabra, women in men's arms, 
and men dismayed at sight of the threatening 
fist are pictured above in the banquet hall. 

We sense what the artist means, but in order 
that we may not have any doubt as to the 
meaning, he writes his comment, namely: 
"The labor of the proletaire is what keeps the 
mechanism of society in motion, and the pro- 
letaire's reward is a condition little better than 
slavery." 

It is the continuous production of just such 
pictures and of just such writing which causes 
the social unrest of to-day. The picture is 
unnecessarily sensational and the writing is 
unnecessarily untruthful. The proletaire's 
labor is not the only labor which keeps society 
in motion. The labor of the folks who have 
cake is just as necessary. 

Society cannot be glibly divided into work- 
ers down below and shirkers up above. There 
are workers in both places and there are shirk- 
ers in both places. There are just as many 
idle poor as there are idle rich, and there are 



32 WHILLIKINS 

proportionately just as many working rich as 
there are working poor. 

Mental labor is fully as essential as mus- 
cular labor, — sometimes more so, — because 
without it the way to labor with the hands 
would not be understood. The manual la- 
borer who thinks that the total profits belong 
to his class has as his greatest competitor the 
brawny ape. 

We hear that the spending of the millionaire 
is criminal, and that it excites unrest and 
curses on the part of the manual toiler. But 
why should it? If the millionaire spends a 
million does it not circulate the money? Do 
not the manual laborers get employment 
thereby? Suppose that the millionaire buried 
his money, or gave it to Bathless Bill? 

The pleaders of the manual laborers' cause 
overlook facts. They fail to consider indi- 
viduals. They classify society into hostile 
camps. With them it is proletaire and aris- 
tocrat, no bread and all cake. 

What the manual laborer needs, — needs 
more than he needs a union and a walking 
delegate, — is sense and self-reliance. 

I have seen it stated that the reason or- 
ganized labor contributed so liberally and 



THE SOCIALITE 33 

promptly to the McNamara defense fund was 
because it honestly believed that the McNa- 
mara brothers were innocent. As I note the 
spirit of organized labor I do not think that 
was the reason. The reason was a blind fool 
desire to spring to the defense of the labor 
union. The labor union can do no wrong! 
Our American brainlessness makes us defend 
our ism, no matter what it does, simply be- 
cause we belong. 

Now let no one who works with his hands 
think that by my unwillingness to accept the 
labor union and socialism and syndicalism I 
am defending the snobbish, useless rich. I 
have no other purpose in writing thus than to 
call attention to the danger of class distinc- 
tions, to the untruth of social schemes, and to 
emphasize that individual sense and initiative 
are the needs among manual and mental toil- 
ers alike. The former might have cake, if 
they wanted it, instead of being breadless. 
The rich man might have bread, if he wanted 
it, instead of being surfeited with cake. 



CHAPTER VI 

CAMP-MEETING HOT AIR 

If you will come into the tent and get on 
the front seat, I will harangue a bit on indus- 
try. I am not going to talk of physical labor. 
For, while it is true that "physical laziness is 
the father of poverty and the grandfather of 
theft," industry is more than physical activity. 
Its seat is not the hand but the inner man. 

This is the era of the working man. He 
makes himself heard and would have you be- 
lieve that the worker with his hands is the 
only foundation of the state. 

That is a good war-whoop, but it is not a 
fact. 

The laborer with his hands is as essential 
to civilization as any one kind of laborer, but 
not more so. Every mechanic may have per- 
sonal interest in the Carpenter of Nazareth 
because he was a mechanic. I also have an 
interest in him because he loved nature. But 
neither the mechanic nor I has a right to 

34 



THE SOCIALITE 35 

monopolize Jesus Christ. He is the Saviour 
of all kinds of workers and teachers. 

The Man from Nazareth is the Redeemer 
of society; and society is a bigger term than 
socialism. 

When I speak of industry I am speaking of 
the working soul, not of the working hand. 
A man may work with his muscle and be in- 
dolent; he may work with his artist's brush 
or chisel and be indolent. But if he work 
with his soul, then his muscle, his brush, his 
chisel, or his pen will evidence his industry. 
Save the working soul and you have saved 
society. Save the working man, in the limited 
sense with which we use that expression, and 
you have saved, at most, the labor union. 

We need to talk more about industrious 
souls. We need to call some meetings in their 
behalf. We are working the cause of our 
mouths and our hands over time, and our poor 
souls are getting scant attention. 

There are two things about an industrious 
soul which are noteworthy. 

An industrious soul is discriminating. It 
looks into moral questions with fully as much 
care as that of the man who puts his pocket- 
book under his pillow at night. Plato was 



36 WHILLIKINS 

not far wrong when he said, "All misdoing 
has its beginning in stupidity." 

An industrious soul is an all round soul, 
fully statured. Its ideal is not a sunlit cloud 
above the head. It is in front of its feet. 

A discriminating soul and an all round soul 
can tackle the fact of life. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE WORKER PROBLEM 

It is my personal opinion, borne out by some 
illustrations which have come within my at- 
tention, that it is time to say less about the 
labor problem and more about the worker 
problem. In the noise of the labor problem, 
— noise made by both those who fear and 
those who welcome a solution, — the much 
more important problem of the worker is un- 
heard. In fact there are few who say any- 
thing about it. It is so simple and so plain 
that it is not seen. It is so important that a 
windy age blows over it unheeding. 

The labor problem is stated in many terms; 
for instance, take the following expressions. 
An eight hour day, maximum wage, limitation 
of apprentices, the union versus the scab, the 
strike, the boycott, the lockout, the picket, the 
strike breaker, the walking delegate, the mob, 
the destruction of property, the haughty em- 
ployer, etc., etc. 

37 



38 WHILLIKINS 

The labor problem is a problem because to 
state it is a problem. 

The worker problem, on the other hand, 
may be stated in few words, namely: the un- 
willingness to please by doing good work. 

The labor problem can be solved in to-day 
and half of to-morrow by each worker saying, 
"I want to please by doing good work." 

It is time for workers to unionize them- 
selves on the principle of pleasing by doing 
good work, and to cease unionizing on the 
principle that to the worker belongs the max- 
imum spoils by the minimum of effort. Many 
a man thinks the Millennium of Labor waits 
on eight hours a day and sixty cents an hour. 

The fact is that the Millennium of Labor 
waits on willingness to please by doing good 
work. 

To-day eight out of every ten workers carry 
a chip on the shoulder. Those who do not 
succeed by their willingness to please. The 
eight are always swapping grievances. The 
two are down for promotion at the next op- 
portunity. 

Did you ever ask a train conductor a ques- 
tion when he came down the aisle to punch 
your ticket? Did you, as he slackened not in 



THE SOCIALITE 39 

passing, stretch yourself over the three seats 
behind in order to get his inarticulate answer? 
He was one of the eight who furnish the 
worker problem. 

Did you ever give a job of work to a printer 
and have to cull out one-tenth of it because of 
careless press work and poor attention to copy? 
That printer was one of the eight who fur- 
nish the worker problem. 

Did you ever have your floors marred 
by a hobnailed piano mover? He was one of 
the eight who furnish the worker problem. 

Did you ever engage a plumber to do a bit 
of work and have him come, toolless and minus 
material, to look at your job, and charge you 
at plumber's rates for the looking? He was 
one of the eight. 

Did you ever have a painter apply brick- 
dust and gasoline to your floor or to your 
house? He was of the eight. 

Did you ever have a butcher weigh his 
hand at pork rates? He was one of the 
eight. 

Did you ever hear a preacher talk, with his 
left ear pointed in the direction of the heavy 
contributor? He was one of the eight. 

Did you ever note the man who sought po- 



4 o WHILLIKINS 

litical office for dignity and plums? He was 
one of the eight 

Of course, you have seen all these types, 
because I have; and my eyes are no better than 
yours. 

But let us not forget the two who want to 
please by doing good work. Let us travel on 
their trains. Let us give them our printing, 
our piano moving, our plumbing work, and 
our painting. Let us buy our meat at their 
shops. Let us go to hear them preach. Let 
us move into the ward where they are alder- 
men. 



CHAPTER VIII 

HOW ABOUT INDEMNITY FOR THE EMPLOYER? 

We are up to our armpits in legislation. 
Would-be-heard-of-right-quick legislators are 
adding to our misery, because it is only a mat- 
ter of time until the waves of legislation will 
wash over our heads. 

Of all this deluge that rises and floods us, — 
pouring out of legislative halls as the peren- 
nial spring from the cave in the hills, — about 
three-fourths of it may be called classically 
"fool legislation." 

With all due respect to those who are sin- 
cerely fumbling with social amelioration, I 
think that the agitation which, in the case of 
the accidental injury or the death of an em- 
ployee, would legislate from one to three 
years' salary out of an employer deserves to be 
classed with the three-fourths. 

In some cases, no doubt, a money compen- 
sation, given to an employee or to his surviv- 
ing family for accident or death, may rightly 

41 



42 WHILLIKINS 

be demanded. In other cases it is radically 
unjust. More accidents are due to the care- 
lessness of the employee or to his unreasonable 
demands than to the failure of the employer to 
provide safety appliances. 

In all kinds of work the unexpected may 
happen, — accidents may occur. Sitting here 
quietly at my table, with the wind a gale out- 
side, my neighbor's chimney may topple and 
crash upon me. The chimney is secure ap- 
parently. My neighbor is certainly not re- 
sponsible for the wind. 

Both employer and employee take chances 
when they run a shop, whether they manufac- 
ture gravestones or sell groceries. If the em- 
ployee has a right to indemnity from the em- 
ployer, the employer has an equal right to it 
from the employee. 

The new social labor gospel is the procla- 
mation that the employer and employee are 
partners ; so the employee insists upon having 
a share of the profits. Very well. Then let 
the employee partner meet his obligation to 
indemnify his employer partner just as he 
wants the employer to indemnify him. The 
Golden Rule when properly worked operates 
both ways. 



THE SOCIALITE 43 

Many a careless employee has cost his em- 
ployer dollars of property. He has beaten 
his live stock and ruined his lathes. He has 
torn down his fences and broken his windows. 
The employer has footed the bills. When, 
through careless, indifferent service from em- 
ployees, an employer loses trade and goes 
bankrupt, how often do the employees assist 
him to his feet financially? The question 
needs no answer. 

There are two sides to the obligation be- 
tween the employer and the employee. If 
both are partners in profits, both are partners 
in losses. If an employee steps on a nail in 
the east end of a board and demands indem- 
nity, then if his employer steps on a nail in 
the west end of the same board, the employer 
has a right to demand indemnity also. 

However, instead of either demanding in- 
demnity or urging sundry sentimental legis- 
lative measures, their time had better be di- 
rected to an attempt to ascertain how the board 
with the nails happened to be there or to re- 
moving the nails from both ends. 

That is the way it seems to one who is 
neither an employer nor an employee. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE LATEST COMBINE 

It is a feeble year which cannot give birth 
to a new monopolistic adjustment. All prob- 
lems are merely different social adjustments. 
One day eleven rich men combine and pinch 
the consumer. The next day eleven poor men 
combine and pinch the consumer. 

The results are the same for the consumer. 
He is pinched. 

There is neither vice nor virtue in posses- 
sions. There is neither vice nor virtue in lack 
of possessions. 

The vice or virtue inheres in the combined 
individuals, whether they be "paupers patri- 
cian or paupers plebeian." 

The consumer is footballed about the grid- 
iron, between the manicured and the cal- 
loused elevens. Sometimes one side kicks a 
goal. Most of the time the consumer is fum- 
bled. 

Now this sort of thing has been going on 
for some time in this extremely socialistic day. 

44 



THE SOCIALITE 45 

The two elevens have been getting more and 
more acquainted with each other. Once in 
a while they have opened a bottle together 
after the first half, giving the football a mo- 
ment's rest in the November rain. 

So it has been a natural thing that there 
should come about a monopolistic readjust- 
ment. It is a sort of an all-star team of picked 
men from both sides. The football can ex- 
pect more lively handling next season than 
ever. 

Of course it is not to be supposed that this 
all-star team was picked in an open conven- 
tion of both elevens. That is not the method 
of forming new combines. The ostensible 
purpose must always be sufficiently ostensible 
to hide the real purpose. 

I quote a news report in order to show the 
way in which the preliminaries to the all-star 
formation were arranged. 

"The most significant labor convention in 
the history of the United States took place at 
the Amsterdam Opera House, New York, on 
Sunday, Sept. 25th. It was a joint meeting 
of 3,000 delegates of the four railway brother- 
hoods, vested with authority from 350,000 
railroad workmen on 63 lines east of the Mis- 



46 WHILLIKINS 

sissippi River. That meeting directed its 
chiefs to go to Washington and appeal to the 
Government of the United States for a square 
deal to their employers. 

"It was the first great labor meeting in his- 
tory which went on record with the declara- 
tion that the interests of employers and em- 
ployed are identical." 

Do you see the initial stages of the latest 
combine? Do you see how an all-star aggre- 
gation is to be got together? 

As a consumer, you may have thought it 
was pretty tough to be swatted back and forth 
between the employers' eleven and the em- 
ployees' eleven. But that has not been a cir- 
cumstance to the lively time you will have 
when the all-star bunch gets after you. It 
will kick goals from the field just as fast as it 
can toss you back into place. In every game 
the lining will be knocked out of several con- 
sumers. 

In recent years the railroads have been more 
or less unable to play the game as of yore. 
There has been a stringent revision of the 
rules. Legislation in the interest of the con- 
suming public has been enacted. The game 
has been getting stifler and stiffer. 



THE SOCIALITE 47 

Wherever it has been possible to ignore the 
rules, it has been done. In fact, the railroad 
policy is "never do anything for the public 
unless compelled, and not even then if it be 
possible, through the manipulation and de- 
lays of parasitic lawyers and courts, to evade 
the compulsion." 

Given one railway and no competition, the 
result is unsatisfactory service, insolence from 
headquarters when information is sought, de- 
lays, and so on. 

The greatest single factor to-day in Sunday 
smashing is the railroad excursion, with its 
cheap-rate limited tickets. 

Unjust, unequal freight rates are notorious. 
Not a little of the increased cost of living is 
due to exorbitant freight rates. 

This indictment of the railroads is none too 
strong. Its chief fault is incompleteness. 
What more natural than a new tack on the 
part of the railroads to gain their ends? 

First, — Train material has gone up, wages 
too, and rates have been lowered by legisla- 
tion; ergo, railroads into receivers' hands, 
which is simply a new combination of capi- 
talists. 

Second, — Railroad employees find threat- 



48 WHILLIKINS 

ened lower wages staring them in the face. 

Third, — Secret overtures are made to the 
labor unions by the railroads. "Increase of 
wages, dear boys, if you will fix Uncle Sam, 
for we can't. He is suspicious of us. He 
does not suspect you." With this as a sop, 
the labor unions assemble and instruct their 
delegates to Washington. And so the all-star 
eleven gets a start. 

"The action of the brotherhoods was not 
based on a sudden inspiration," says the news 
report. "There was no tumultuous hysteria. 
It was manifest that the proposal to stand by 
the companies had been the topic of debate in 
every lodge in the country for months hereto- 
fore. And the delegates came to the Council 
with one idea in mind, namely: that the em- 
ployees were in the selfsame boat with the em- 
ployers." 

Why, to be sure! How a boat reveals the 
inwardness of social schemes, whether the pro- 
gram be labor-union or capitalistic. 

"The lobbyists for the brotherhoods will 
depart from their methods heretofore, and 
boost for the companies as well as for them- 
selves." 

And may the devil take the public. 



THE SOCIALITE 49 

The tactics of a monopolist are the same, — 
undemocratic and selfish, — whether he be em- 
ployer or employee. 

The labor union is impeached to-day by its 
struggle solely for pelf. The capitalistic 
class is impeached before the bar of democ- 
racy by its attempt to gain pelf. 

The socialism of the capitalist and of the 
labor union man is the socialism of pelf. It 
is the consumer who loses his skin. When 
the consumer becomes an ardent advocate of 
individualism the soul of brotherhood will be 
born. 



CHAPTER X 

PROFESSORIAL PUNK 

Mr. Walter Rauschenbusch, professor of 
Church History in the Rochester Theological 
Seminary, writes books mainly on social 
themes. I have been reading recently his 
book entitled, "Christianity and the Social 
Crisis." 

We have had it dinged into us by socialites 
for so long that there is a crisis on board the 
ship of civilization that one naturally wishes 
to find out what the beast looks like. So, 
armed with a stout stick, I went down into the 
dark to see if I could get a glimpse of it. I 
had expected to find the whiskers of this crisis 
beast gray with age; but I had no idea that 
the whole beast would be gray. It is a pretty 
senile proposition, this social crisis. No won- 
der Mr. Rauschenbusch uses decayed logic 
when he gives the biography of the beast. 

We have here the academic mind superfi- 
cially alert to "problems." To drop the beast 

50 



THE SOCIALITE 51 

figure and use another more elegant, I will say 
that our writers on social themes climb the tree 
and experiment with the branches whereas the 
trouble lies in the root. All social trouble is 
in the heart of the individual. 

I am not writing a review of "Christianity 
and the Social Crisis." I am putting down 
a few thoughts of my own, interspersed with 
quotations from the professor. Of necessity 
my paragraphs will then be unrelated. Quo- 
tation marks indicate the passages from the 
book. 

There is no such thing as a social unit. 
Nothing is social first. 

What we need more than social righteous- 
ness is individual balance and calm enjoyment 
of life near at hand. 

Ritual and creed are purely social develop- 
ments ; so when the socialist attacks ritual and 
creed he smites the things for which he is him- 
self responsible. 

The trouble to-day is not that men, nom- 
inally Christian, believe in salvation by the 
machinery of religion and are not ethically 
religious; the trouble is that their belief is 
habit, and their neglect is indifference. 

The professor says : "It is important to note 



52 WHILLIKINS 

that the morality which the prophets had in 
mind in their insistence on righteousness was 
not the private morality of the home, but pub- 
lic morality." 

It is more than strange that any one should 
fail to see that if a man is really moral at 
home, he will be moral on the street. 

How can a nation right social wrongs un- 
less the individual citizens are willing to do 
it? 

The capitalist and the aristocrat of booze 
would not bulk big if the proletaire did not 
buy the booze. 

It is passing strange that any one should 
fail to see that the only "Day of Jehovah" is 
that day when the individual achieves some 
effective amount of righteousness. 

You read and read in Rauschenbusch to 
find the "social interpretation of the gospel," 
as he calls it, but you never find it. What is 
it? Who knows? The gospel of Jesus is 
simple enough to be comprehended. It is in- 
dividual righteousness and fervor. The so- 
cialite, who thinks that he is discovering some- 
thing new in the New Testament, had better 
look in the mirror for a donkey. 

To be a consistent socialite one would have 



THE SOCIALITE 53 

to believe that there was not a single Jesus, but 
a whole family of Jesuses. 

What John the Baptist did was to take away 
the social conception of the Kingdom, and to 
put in its place an individualistic one. 

The people wanted a Messianic cataclysm 
which would bring the Kingdom of Heaven 
ready-made down from the skies. Jesus said 
that the Kingdom would have to grow up 
among them in their separate lives. They 
were socialites. He was an individualist. 

The professor says: "Jesus worked on in- 
dividuals and through individuals ; but his end 
was not individualistic. It was social." That 
is like saying, 2 plus 2 equals 4; but 4 is not 4. 
It is 5. 

The professor says that "Jesus appreciated 
the heroic generosity of the poor." I do not 
think that the poor are any more generous than 
the not poor. 

Our social urgers seem to think that it is a 
unique thing when two men speak to each 
other. But when was a true individual not 
social? 

We hear the church criticised because of its 
costly houses of worship; and it is said that 
money in such buildings is wasted. But it is 



54 WHILLIKINS 

a deal more sensible to put money into such 
pieces of architecture than to put it into soda 
fountains, tobacco warehouses, breweries, 
automobiles, and moving picture shows. 

Suppose there had never been any private 
property to sell! How about the communism 
of the Jerusalem church to which the socialist 
often makes appeal? It would have been 
rather skimpy, don't you think? Ananias and 
Sapphira were the only sensible ones; for they 
kept back part for the next time. Of course 
this does not excuse their falsehood. 

I wonder if, with all the dining together of 
the Apostolic days, there was not a great deal 
of indigestion privately experienced? 

The professor says: "If the old gospel of 
individualism should hereafter change into the 
new gospel of socialism," and so on. Indi- 
vidualism is not an old gospel. It is new. It 
is socialism that is old and weazen and feeble. 
It dates back to the day Eve and the serpent 
entered into partnership. 

The income tax, the inheritance tax, the sin- 
gle tax, and the old age pensions, are as asinine 
as legislation can become without ears. 

Anent private landownership the professor 
says: "The first comers are well placed; but 



THE SOCIALITE 55 

how about those who press up hungry through 
our ports and gates of birth?" Easy to an- 
swer. The son finds land awaiting him when 
the father passes on, — if the father has been 
industrious. As for those who come through 
the ports, if they are not incompetent and an- 
archistic, they have a chance to work and to 
save as every one has done who has gained 
possession of land. 

My observation of the socialist is that he is 
short on facts and long on suppositions. The 
professor says: "Already the current of im- 
migration, which no longer finds a ready out- 
let to the land, is choking in the cities." It 
may be choking in the cities, but not because 
there is no land space outside the cities. I 
would like to lead the professor through the 
Ozarks for a week or two. He would get new 
light through his legs. In this country land 
lies everywhere untilled, and wasted when 
tilled. 

The professor says: "Throughout our 
country those locations which give access to 
special opportunities are rapidly being ab- 
sorbed. The most beautiful locations along 
our seashores and on our lakes and rivers are 
bought up and people are fenced out from 



56 WHILLIKINS 

natural beauty and pleasure." The poor 
dears! Did they go there before they were 
fenced out? Not they! They went to the 
movies seven times a week. 

The professor thinks that a city lot which 
rises in value because it is fortunately located 
should not be allowed to increase the wealth 
of an individual. But why discriminate 
against a city lot? The city house is also 
made valuable through its fortunate location. 
All property is, for that matter, so increased 
in value. Therefore, the single tax is the idea 
of a single-barrel intellect. 

There is no reason for city congestion. In 
this day of rapid transit people may live far 
out, and get to their places of employment in 
less time than the village farm hand. The un- 
improved lot is not responsible for city crowd- 
ing, as Rauschenbusch claims. The gregari- 
ous tendency of dependent humanity is respon- 
sible. A slum is always in the mind first. 

The professor says: "In capitalistic pro- 
duction there is a cooperation between two dis- 
tinct groups. A small group which owns all 
the material factors of land and machinery; 
a large group which owns nothing but the per- 
sonal factor of human labor power. No at- 



THE SOCIALITE 57 

tempt is made to allot to the workman his 
share of the profits of the joint work. In- 
stead, he is paid a fixed wage." 

How the workman would howl if his com- 
pensation was a share of the profits, and some 
month or some year there should not be any 
profits. What the socialist workman wants 
is a fixed wage and also a share of the profits, 
so that he will get there going and coming. 
But a fixed wage for the workman is equiva- 
lent to an uncertain six per cent for the capi- 
talist. 

The professor says: "In our business life 
to-day we have individualism." Maybe; but 
no one has been able to point it out. What 
we really have is a mongrel strife. 

The socialist desires a system of profit-shar- 
ing. Where farms are rented on shares we 
have the profit-sharing theory in practice. Is 
it a success there? It is a success there only 
to the extent that the renter is a good farmer. 

The professor says : "There is little oppor- 
tunity for a man to put his personal stamp on 
his work. The medieval craftsman could rise 
to be an artist by working well at his craft. 
The modern factory hand cannot." True. The 
past fact that goes along with the present sad 



58 WHILLIKINS 

truth is that the system of the medieval crafts- 
man was individualistic. 

What we need to-day is teaching that will 
make the individual worker, — whether in 
overalls or in a white vest, — provident in hus- 
banding his wage, and not so willing to de- 
pend upon an old age pension. I know a man 
who has had an average wage of less than a 
thousand dollars yearly for twelve years. He 
owes no man, and has saved a penny or two. 

The professor says: "Wherever the eco- 
nomic condition of any class is hopeful and 
improving there is an increase of the birth- 
rate. Wherever there is economic disaster or 
increasing pressure there is a decline in the 
birth-rate." This is disproved by the large 
families of the poor. 

The professor says : "There must be either 
a revival of social religion or there will be a 
deluge." The only deluge on record occurred 
because there was too much social religion. 

The professor continues: "The pulpit has 
been more concerned with the fact that some 
individuals were barred from a job by the 
unions than with the fact that the entire wage- 
working class is debarred from the land, from 
the tools of production, and from a fair share 



THE SOCIALITE 59 

in the proceeds of production." This leads me 
to the root of syndicalism, viz., the manual la- 
borer has a right to all that he produces. We 
need to remember that there would not be a 
man in the ditch if some other man had not 
surveyed the pipe line; and the other man 
would not have surveyed the pipe line, had 
still another man not put up the cash. Yet 
syndicalists write, "The employer who makes 
a profit out of the labor of another man is a 
robber!" Such a writer overlooks the em- 
ployer's care, worry, and mental toil, and in 
many cases manual toil also. The employer 
should not be compensated; to the hired man 
belong all the spoils! The syndicalist does 
not take notice of the careless, irresponsible 
worker. Such a one as, for instance, rented 
two hundred acres of fertile land last year, and 
returned to the owner a bare two and a half 
per cent on his investment, while at the same 
time the owner donated his services. 

The author's idea is that truth is in the pos- 
session of the "common people." This is the 
mistake of all socialites. They fail to com- 
prehend human nature. There are periodic, 
spasmodic movements in favor of the "com- 
mon people." We need constant activities for 



60 WHILLIKINS 

the development of the "uncommon people." 
There is no social salvation via the "common 
people." They are the problem. 

"Religious individualism," says Rauschen- 
busch, "lacks triumphant faith in the possible 
sovereignty of Jesus Christ in all human af- 
fairs, and it lacks the vision and herald voice 
to proclaim his ever present conquest and en- 
thronement." I wonder how the professor 
found that out! 

"Socialism," says the professor, "means that 
the workman shall be both owner and worker, 
as the farmer who tills the soil or the house- 
wife in her home. This would end the pres- 
ent insecurity." I take it that the professor 
supposes that every farmer pays his debts and 
raises fat shoats, and that every housewife 
keeps a clean dish-rag and a floor swept behind 
the piano. 

The punk has burned out. 



CHAPTER XI 

SOME FOOLISHNESS FROM EDWARD 
CARPENTER 

Edward Carpenter is just such a man as the 
rest of us. He has written some wise things; 
then again he has pencilled some surprisingly 
foolish ideas. 

I point here to a bit of his foolishness. 

Do you know that I think that we are too 
much inclined to accept men and their teach- 
ings, without separating the chafl and the 
wheat? Writers and speakers are certain to 
advance along with good common sense, theo- 
ries unwarranted by history and unusable in 
life. 

The individual who thinks carefully will not 
accept without discrimination the ideas of an- 
other. With the exception of the Galilean no 
teacher has been entirely consistent. That is 
the reason why I believe so thoroughly in in- 
dividualism. I respect the man who is not 
stampeded by social vagaries. 

61 



62 WHILLIKINS 

Here is the case of Edward Carpenter. In 
his book, "Civilization, Its Cause and Cure," 
he says : 

"Civilization began with the private owner- 
ship of property, and so created a class of land- 
less aliens, and a whole system of rent, mort- 
gage, interest, etc. It introduced slavery, 
serfdom, and wage labor, which are only vari- 
ous forms of the dominance of one class over 
another. Then to rivet these authorities, it 
created the state and the policeman." 

What about this peculiarly worded state- 
ment? 

"Civilization began with the private owner- 
ship of property." That is to be granted. 
But the conclusion, — "and so created a class 
of landless aliens, and a whole system of rent, 
mortgage, and interest," is wide of the truth. 

This latter statement is utterly unworthy of 
credence, because it condemns rent, mortgage, 
and interest, by joining to it the expression, 
"landless aliens." 

The private ownership of property did not 
create landless aliens. Landless aliens created 
themselves. 

A single man, by his use of will and intel- 
lect, gained the ownership of one acre of land. 



THE SOCIALITE 63 

Nine others, — who might have owned a razor- 
back hog, at least, — began to envy and criticise 
the man who had been more energetic than 
they. This is more nearly the truth of the 
propertyowning proposition. 

To-day in America any man can get land, if 
he wants it. It is to be had almost for the 
taking. The trouble is men prefer a landless 
condition in the smother and smell of the city. 

Now, to turn to rent, interest, mortgage, etc. 
What indictment can reasonably be made 
against them? 

If a man owns a piece of property and pays 
taxes on it, improving it to a certain extent, 
and then allows me to live in the house which 
he has built, or cultivate the land for my profit, 
I owe him rental money for the use of his 
property. That is reasonable. If I buy an 
acre of land and, not having the money pay- 
ment, am permitted to take possession, what is 
the social crime of my being asked to give a 
mortgage? The interest on a mortgage is 
nothing but rental money, which is, as pointed 
out above, reasonable to reasonable men. The 
trouble is socialism is not overly gifted with 
reason. 

The abuses of the private ownership sys- 



64 WHILLIKINS 

tern are what need to be abolished, not the sys- 
tem. Rent and interest are the straw men of 
the socialists. 

Rev. R. J. Campbell, whose socialistic pro- 
clivities have been more or less aired, says : 

"By what natural right or title does any man 
claim to appropriate one foot of the earth, and 
exclude his fellow creatures from it except on 
the condition that they shall provide him with 
a share of what they draw from it? Rent and 
interest are therefore immoral." 

That sort of reasoning is about on the level 
with "My name is Smith, your name is Jones. 
Therefore, Jones, you are a devil." 

"By what natural right," etc., queries Camp- 
bell. That is just what it is, — natural. The 
right to own an acre of land and demand rent 
from the one who uses it, is neither supernat- 
ural nor artificial. If a man earns an acre of 
land, and passes the use of it on to another man, 
rent is the owner's share of the produce, — often 
a small share, sometimes too great, but, never- 
theless, a legitimate arrangement. The man 
who uses the land should pay rent as his con- 
tribution for what he has not earned. A per 
cent of the rent in turn goes into taxes which 
benefit the community. 



THE SOCIALITE 65 

Rent is money earned from land which is 
furnished and improved by the owner, and 
tilled by the renter. 

Taxes are a per cent of the rental, and 
therefore owner and tenant have combined in 
the payment of those taxes. 

So the thing that the socialist agitates for is 
already an item in private ownership and 
taxes, viz., community of effort. 

Can it be that the socialist agitates because 
he does not wish to meet the demands of co- 
operation? 



CHAPTER XII 

A LITTLE WISDOM FROM EDWARD CARPENTER 

Yes, I think there is room to show what I 
meant in the preceding essay by "use of dis- 
crimination." Here is a wise thing which 
Edward Carpenter has also written in "Civili- 
zation, Its Cause and Cure." 

"It can hardly be doubted that the tendency 
will be — indeed already is showing itself — to- 
wards a return to nature and community of 
human life. This is the way back to the lost 
Eden, or rather forward to the new Eden, of 
which the old was only a figure." 

"Man has only to undo the wrappings and 
the mummydoms of centuries," he continues, 
"by which he has shut himself from the light 
of the sun, and lain in seeming death, prepar- 
ing silently for his glorious resurrection. He 
has to emerge from houses and from all his 
hiding places wherein so long ashamed (as 
at the voice of God in the Garden) he con- 
cealed himself — and nature must once more 

66 



THE SOCIALITE 67 

become his home, as it is the home of the ani- 
mals and the angels." 

Now, I call that really fine, — especially that 
last phrase which speaks of nature as the home 
of the animals and the angels. 

Then Carpenter continues worthily enough, 
I think: 

"Some day we shall again understand what 
the Greeks, in the very sunrise of true art, un- 
derstood. Possibly some day we shall again 
build our houses, or dwelling-places, so simple 
and elemental in character, that they will fit 
in the nooks of the hills, or along the banks of 
the streams, or by the edges of the woods, with- 
out disturbing the harmony of the landscape or 
the songs of the birds." 

Here Mr. Carpenter has touched upon 
what is, — to every one who likes nature and 
has even the hint of an artistic temperament, 
— a very important consideration. Dwellings 
should fit into the landscape, and should be 
located with some regard to scenic outlook. I 
think that I may say, with moderation, that 
two-thirds of American dwellings are illustra- 
tions of a complete disregard for the possibili- 
ties of the natural surroundings. Again and 
again I have wondered at the stupidity which 



68 WHILLIKINS 

chooses the most unpromising building site on 
the property. Why does a man who is for- 
tunate enough to own a hillside, — from which 
may be seen ten, twenty or thirty miles of val- 
ley, and mountain, and stream, or lake, — place 
his dwelling where no outlook is possible? 

It is a considerable distance from Gary, In- 
diana, to Greece. 



Ill 

WHILLIKINS— THE QUEER 



CHAPTER I 

TACT OR DO-NOTHINGISM 

Three men were in conference with a fourth. 
One of the three was somewhat shy of balance 
north of the neck. At a stage in the consulta- 
tion he banged his chair-arm with his fist, 
screwed his mouth up like the hole the rats 
made in the back of the granary, and declared 
he would !!!.??!!?, etc. Then he bolted 
through the door, expecting his two compan- 
ions to follow him. But they did not. 

After the exodus of their rat-hole friend 
the elder of the remaining two said: "I don't 

like that spirit in brother . He is wrong." 

The younger replied: "I don't either. I 
don't see what ails him." Then spoke up the 
man with whom the three had been in confer- 
ence. "Why did you not tell him that? It 
would have effectually muffled his exhaust. 
You admit he is wrong. Why let him bam- 
boozle you?" 

u Oh," replied the twain in concert, "that 
would not have been 'tact'." 

71 



72 WHILLIKINS 

If there are any two words in the English 
language which need relegating to the ety- 
mological limbo, they are "tact" and "strenu- 
ous." Of Teddy's favorite I will speak anon. 
Just now a word about "tact." 

There may have been a time when "tact" 
was worthy of attention because of what it 
really meant. It meant originally not to step 
on a man's corns just as you were about to take 
his subscription for your pet charity. 

In these latter days "tact" has become the 
refuge of laissez faire. Men who would ex- 
cuse their unwillingness to seize a condition 
by its ears plead "tact." They say they don't 
want to stir up trouble, when all the time they 
are the green vegetables in a stew of trouble 
underneath which the man with the rat-hole 
mouth keeps the fires burning. 

The bulldozer maintains his lease on life by 
virtue of the "tact" of his victims. Let an 
acquiescent man of "tact" suddenly stiffen up 
along the backbone and hand the bulldozer a 
few pellets, and that individual will soon look 
like a cat chewing pigeon-grass. 

So called "tact," to-day, is nothing but an 
overpowering disinclination to count for some- 
thing. It is do-nothingism, and do-nothing- 



THE QUEER 73 

ism is death overlooked by the sanitary police 
and the undertaker. 

I would stiffen up that backbone, if I were 
you, and say somewhat to the man with the 
rat-hole mouth. 



CHAPTER II 

MODERN BUSINESS VS. REAL BUSINESS 

This is a day when modern business claims 
to be the all important activity in human life. 
It arrogates to itself the place of supreme 
worthiness. The modern business man is said 
to be the twentieth-century Savior. He is the 
man to save the home, the church, the state, 
the nation. Modern business management is 
supposed to point the way to individual and 
social peace, profit, and plenty. 

Now just how much is there to all this 
palaver? 

At the outset let me say that I think gen- 
uine business is desirable everywhere. Busy- 
ness, or the state of ordered activity, is good 
everywhere. For its lack many a matter goes 
awry. Business is a sensible activity when it 
is really business. But I have a belief that 
two-thirds of what calls itself modern business 
is unbusinesslike in its activities. 

Real business is the reasonable spirit of effi- 

74 



THE QUEER 75 

ciency which may hover around a palette, as 
well as around a pork barrel. It may sit in 
the study as well as in the mercantile office. 
It may saunter along country roads at sunset, 
as well as whirl rapidly along steel rails at 
noonday. The real business spirit may wor- 
ship God quietly within the church, as well as 
run for the legislature. 

All this is gladly recognized by me, but I 
still have space to criticise what assumes the 
name but lacks the spirit of business. Two- 
thirds of modern business is inefficient effort 
directed toward secondary achievement. 
Modern business, so-called, is demanding the 
center of the stage; whereas it is fit only to be 
a super. 

Considering real business as a reasonable 
spirit of efficiency, let us note some things. 

We are told that the modern business man is 
needed in politics. The trouble is there are 
too many modern business men in politics. 

We are told that we need modern business 
men at Washington. The trouble is there are 
too many there already. The men at Wash- 
ington are capable enough as financiers for 
themselves. They have cornered the elusive 
shekel. Half our energy just now is spent 



76 WHILLIKINS 

on discussions of trusts, combines, etc., and the 
other half is spent anathematizing the modern 
business men in politics who have made these 
things possible. 

We see an occasional cartoon that represents 
modern business calling off the dogs of war. 
Some folks think that peace is to be realized 
by modern business pronouncing the benedic- 
tion. The fact is that every war in history had 
as its prime instigator some form of modern 
business under the guise of commercial su- 
premacy, national honor, development of re- 
sources, etc. The fortification of the Panama 
Canal is urged by modern business. A half 
hundred million dollars will be squandered by 
modern business in an attempt to glamorize 
the world. 

The welfare of modern business has been 
one of the reasons advanced for a great navy. 
But Norman Angell in his book, "The Great 
Illusion," mentions the fact that Norway's 
mercantile fleet is larger in proportion to the 
population than that of Great Britain. 

Modern business argues that armaments are 
necessary for the serenity and happiness of 
small nations. But 3 per cent bonds of Bel- 
gium are quoted at 96, while those of an all 



THE QUEER 77 

powerful military nation like Germany are 
quoted at 82. 

Modern business proclaims the advantage 
of citizenship in a large, world-dominating 
nation. But, as a rule, in small nations the in- 
dividual lives much more comfortably than in 
a large one, for his burdens of taxation are not 
so heavy. 

In public affairs modern business is the 
rogue out of jail, — the despot on the necks of 
the people. 

Come a little nearer to yourself and note 
what modern business does for you. Perhaps 
you live in a city. The streets are in poor re- 
pair. All civic improvements are like the 
measles — in spots. The moral conditions are 
anything but wholesome. Your taxes are on 
the compound increase. Yet, your city, no 
doubt, has a modern business man for mayor, 
and probably several modern business men on 
the council. If a campaign for civic right- 
eousness should be inaugurated, modern busi- 
ness would shriek its protests to high heaven, 
and talk of the unsettling of conditions, empty 
store buildings, and so on. 

Now, candidly, what is responsible for the 
continuation of many menaces to civic life? 



78 WHILLIKINS 

What pleads the cause of the saloon, the pool 
room, and the dive? Modern business. 

Come still nearer to your personal welfare. 
What has combined politics and public school 
management in many instances? Modern 
business, in the person of some of its promi- 
nent representatives. What is responsible for 
child labor, sweatshops, ungodly competition, 
adulteration of foodstuffs, and exorbitant 
prices? Modern business. 

It is good mental exercise to analyze the 
thing called modern business, and find just 
how much buncombe there is in its pretenses. 
The high-sounding palaver about the all- 
worthiness of the modern business man and 
modern methods, needs discounting till we ar- 
rive at the facts. 

There is many a modern business man, of 
no especial ability, who draws $10,000 to 
$75,000 a year because he sprints from depot 
to office in an automobile, and talks chestily 
about finance and efficiency, and rings up long 
distance to say "Pooh! Pooh!" 

Many a modest merchant is as worthy, 
though he does not assume the strenuous face, 
nor dictate into a phonograph. 

If we were to believe that modern business 



THE QUEER 79 

was the only way to success in life, we should 
have to explain how it happens that 90 to 94 
per cent of the men who enter mercantile life 
fail. And bank failures are yearly occur- 
rences also, though modern business men are 
connected therewith. 

Modern business analyzed till the bones 
show, is seen to have no monopoly on effi- 
ciency. It is merely a certain kind of activity 
in which certain people, who are far from 
infallible prophets of success, engage. Mod- 
ern business is no more worthy of considera- 
tion than Art, or Literature, or Religion. It 
does not mean any more for the uplift of the 
race than any other interests that men may 
have. 

Modern business men are no more essential 
to a community than teachers, preachers, or 
day laborers. Their inflated estimates of 
themselves need to be punctured for the good 
of society. 

You are no more certain to get a thing done 
properly and with efficiency when you refer 
it to a committee of modern business men than 
to any other kind of a committee. I have 
tried it, and I know. On the other hand, a 
committee composed of men from various 



80 WHILLIKINS 

callings, if they possess the reasonable spirit 
of efficiency, will take care of the matter. I 
know, for I have tried them. 

A modern business man, fronted with a bit 
of real life, is often a sorely puzzled indi- 
vidual. 

Whatever your vocation, try to develop the 
reasonable spirit of efficiency, which will 
permeate all your activities. As you essay 
your tasks the right spirit will mark you as a 
REAL business man. 

The efficiency expert is the latest fad. He 
will go out of style with the hobble skirt. 



CHAPTER III 

THE POLITICAL LEECH 

It is election day, and as I sit at my table I 
note that the polls have opened for business 
across the street. Business, did I say? It is 
anything but that. It reminds me of a shell 
game, or a discovery by a flock of buzzards. 

If our governmental chain is no stronger 
than its weakest link, then the character of the 
least ward election gives us a good idea of the 
strength of our democracy. It will not bear 
much weight. 

There they stand over yonder by the polls, 
— the political parasites on the body politic. 
It is costing me my share to feed that election 
gang. From five to eight men, drawing a 
good wage for little work, will sit there all 
day with owlish wisdom on their features. 
Two men, or three at most, could do the whole 
business, — that is, were it a business instead 
of a buzzards' roost. 

The candidates are standing as near as they 

81 



82 WHILLIKINS 

dare, passing out cards; and their workers are 
carrying voters to the polls in automobiles and 
carriages. 

The man who is influenced to vote by a 
card thrust into his hand ioo feet from the 
voting booth, or by a free ride in a benzine 
buggy, has not mental calibre enough to en- 
title him to the franchise. 

It should be a jail offense for an office 
seeker to approach the polls for any other pur- 
pose than to cast his own ballot; for any con- 
veyance to be used to carry voters to the polls ; 
for any cards to be distributed; for any work- 
ers to be enlisted. 

There should be only the necessary men em- 
ployed to handle the vote. 

It is time the political leeches were forcibly 
removed from their life job, and the business 
of a municipality put in the hands of a few 
men whose good sense and moral astuteness 
would lead them to serve the public, instead 
of prey upon it. 

A while back I visited the session of a city 
council. A question relating to the conser- 
vation of character was before the onery-able 
body. It was a question which was easy of 
solution, stated, as it was, in social terms which 



THE QUEER 83 

no one could gainsay. Did those councilmen 
act in accord with twentieth-century moral 
needs? Not they. There was no expectation 
that they would. With a baggy-kneed, to- 
bacco-smelling dignity, they voted solidly 
against the proposition. 

I, for one, am getting very tired of support- 
ing the political parasites. How is it with 
you? 



CHAPTER IV 

CUT IT OUT 

What? Radicalism. Conservatism has 
done as much for the world as radicalism. 

It is better to be a violet than a cinder. 

To be able to go far is better than to be able 
to go fast. Several dead aviators would still 
be air conquerors if they had contented them- 
selves with practical demonstrations of sus- 
tained, low, slow flight, instead of spiral 
maneuverings from lofty heights, — flights 
which had no value. We are at the fool stage 
of aeronautics. 

We are warranted in discounting all reports 
twenty-five per cent. Did you ever know of 
a fire where the first estimate of loss was low 
enough? Was there ever a battle in which 
the killed were estimated few enough? How 
long since you saw the orator who made strong 
men weep and women faint? Yet you have 
heard about him. 

Cut out the thrills. 

8 4 



THE QUEER 85 

A little red fire on faded scenery, — before 
which background go to and fro actors who 
tear a passion to tatters, — makes a greater ef- 
fect than did the sun as it beamed over the 
Ozark hills this morning, and flashing through 
ten thousand windows, awakened folks to re- 
ality. The one was set off by a man and a 
match; the other "was risen upon the earth 
when Lot entered Zoar." 

Cut out the hankering for grandeur. When 
the race passed out of monarchial life into the 
realm of Democracy, the sphere of possible 
grandeur changed. Grandeur to-day is so- 
cial. Those that lust for it manipulate so- 
cial forces. They wish to lead the children 
of Adam out of the wilderness. 

Leadership, however, is not our need. Our 
need is for efficient subordinates. We are 
long on officers and short on privates. 

"Follow orders; plow, sow. Do not ask 
why. Thou art not at the level of the an- 
swer." 

Society needs no rescue from the wilder- 
ness. It needs no reformation. It is as good 
as it can be, considering its units. The indi- 
vidual needs rescue and reformation, not so- 
ciety. The best way to reform an individual 



86 WHILLIKINS 

is to remind him that he already knows the 
way out of the wilderness. 

Confucius said: "It concerns me not that 
I have high place. What concerns me is to 
make myself worthy." 



CHAPTER V 

THE NARROWNESS OF THE BROAD 

"Is he liberal?" is the question flung out 
into the chance conversation of any social 
group. It is the inquiry concerning the man 
or the woman who happens to be under dis- 
section. And modern conversation is one- 
third dissection and two-thirds vivisection. 

"Liberality" is the pet word of many self- 
appointed social saviors. They look upon the 
human animal as likely to reach his maturity 
unhindered. Anarchy, philosophic or other- 
wise, stains redly out through the wrappings 
of conventionality, which many people as- 
sume in order to maintain respectability. 

None of the liberal people of our day have 
yet been very specific in their definition of 
liberality. 

If the liberal person resides in Milwaukee, 
St. Louis, or Cincinnati, he very likely means 
by liberality the freedom to be chummy with 
a stein. 

87 



88 WHILLIKINS 

If he is about New York he means, doubt- 
less, the unhindered opportunity to feed swine 
in any old pigpen. 

If he nests under academic eaves, he proba- 
bly means the freedom to say the pseudo-orig- 
inal thing which will shock grandma. 

If he is in politics, he means freedom from 
criticism for his grafting proclivities. 

If he is a journalist, he means non-molesta- 
tion by the people who object to scareheads 
screaming at them from every newsstand. 

If he does not know Christianity from 
charlatanism, he means permission to slide 
through life on the margin of righteousness 
established by other people. 

There was a time when I thought that liberal 
folks were liberal, but now I know that they 
are narrow. If I wish to find an anemic in- 
tellect, I look for a man who poses as broad 
in his thinking. I say this because every-day 
observation informs me that the liberal man 
is one who calls another man narrow because 
he does not accept the liberal one's ism, dissi- 
pation, or frenzy. The average so-called 
"liberal" man and woman to-day are so nar- 
row that they exclude from life an entire re- 
gion of speculation and experience, — the re- 



THE QUEER 89 

ligious region. The religious instinct is as 
well authenticated as any other in life. Yet 
the champion of liberality denies its worth. 
And when anyone refuses to be blinded by his 
sophistry, that person is pasted with the ever 
ready label, "narrow." 

There are parents who wish broad, sturdy 
children, so they shrivel and bake them in the 
arid regions of irreligion. 

A friend was telling me the other day of the 
waning of the religious spirit in a certain col- 
lege in which she is interested. The social 
slush movement has gained considerable ac- 
ceptance. Certain midnight dissipations are 
sanctioned by the trustees and faculty. 
"Why?" I asked. "Oh, for a supposed broad- 
ening effect," was the reply. 

This is not an isolated case of fallacy, but 
too largely the social disease of to-day, root- 
ing where, of all places, we should expect to 
find true breadth of mind. Young men and 
young women are going out with increasing 
frequency from our colleges, narrowed by the 
liberality which trains them to believe that 
the only difference between an ape and a man 
is the inclination on the part of the man to 
wear clothes. 



IV 



WHILLI KINS,— THE RECREATION 

1ST 



CHAPTER I 

HE RAN HIM DOWN TO DEATH 

It occurred on a city street after a snow. 
Some children were coasting. Their sport 
was the sport of childhood; down-sweeping 
on shining runners, and then slow walking and 
dragging of sleds to the top of the incline for 
another descent. There were Jimmie and 
John and Hal and Bert and Tom; yes, and 
there were Mabel and Sarah, Mary and Car- 
rie, and Mandy, too. There were others 
whose names I can only guess. The ages of 
the coasters ran from five years to fifteen. 
They were having a royal time. Jimmie, in 
jeans, and Tom, in neat sweater and jaunty 
cap, went down occasionally on the same sled; 
for Jimmie's sled was a cracker box on board 
runners, and could not scoot as far and as fast 
as Tom's steel coaster. 

Yet Jimmie on his cracker box had as much 
fun as any boy. Jimmie's mother, as she tied 
the red muffler around his neck when he 

93 



94 WHILLIKINS 

started from home that morning, had said: 
"Be careful; don't get run into by bigger 
sleds." And Jimmie had replied, " I'll be 
careful, ma." 

As the mother watched her boy out of sight 
she did not know — but I will not anticipate. 
Jimmie was safe enough, so far as getting run 
down by the coasters was concerned. 

The coasting joy goes on, and Jimmie will 
go home pretty soon. He is getting hungry. 
He can smell the dinner cooking in his 
mother's kitchen. Yes, Jimmie will go home 
pretty soon. His father will be home at 
twelve. Jimmie will leave his sled by the 
kitchen doorstep, knock the snow off his heels, 
and go in to plunge his face into the wash- 
dish in the sink and dry it on the towel behind 
the door. He will be on hand in his chair, 
ruddy of face and hungry, when the dinner, 
steaming hot, is brought from the kitchen. 

This would have been Jimmie's home com- 
ing if — Well, I must tell about that unex- 
pected if. 

While the coasters were in the midst of their 
sport a man cranked up his engine out in his 
"garage," wedged himself behind the steer- 
ing-wheel, let the machine roar in smell and 



THE REACTIONIST 95 

smoke awhile, then slid out on the driveway 
to the road and dashed away. He was one of 
those own-the-road-because-I-run-an-automo- 
bile fellows. Honk! Honk! 

This particular potential murderer had been 
arrested several times for speeding. He had 
been cautioned several other times. He had 
paid his fines, and had laughed, and had said 
that the sport was worth the money. He was 
one of the thousands who jeopardize life and 
comfort in town and country to-day, while an 
asinine public cowers on the corner. 

Mr. Fun-is-worth-it sped on and turned into 
the street where the coasters were at play. 
Honk! Honk! Forty miles an hour up and 
over the crest! 

"Look out, Jimmie! This way quick," 
cried a half-dozen child voices, — Tom's voice 
shrill above them all. 

Jimmie was taking a last coast before going 
home to dinner. He had just flung himself, 
stomach down, on his sled, when hearing the 
warning, he turned his head to see the murder- 
machine topping the hill and bearing down 
upon him with its tons of speeding weight. 
Frantically he dug his toe into the snow to 
turn to the gutter; but it was too late. There 



96 WHILLIKINS 

was the soft crash of sled-runners and the crush 
of a little boy-body as the wheels rolled over 
his back. There was a half-call of fright and 
agony that died in a moan, and a spatter of 
blood on the snow. The flattened, lifeless 
body of Jimmie lay among the boards of the 
sled he had made the day before. 

The goggled devil at the wheel of the mur- 
der machine made a few kicks with his foot 
and a few swings with his arm as the car rolled 
over his victim. Yes, he stopped at the foot 
of the hill. They all do that now. They 
stop, and go back to see, — all save a few who 
may have a road ahead of them with woods 
and turns; in which case they go on and pull 
in their numbers. 

Jimmie's companions gathered about, and 
Tom tried to drag the body from the blood- 
stained snow. 

"Where does he live?" asked the murderer. 
"I'll carry him home in 'ma masheen.' " 

"It's about time for Jimmie to come," said 
the mother to the father, who was washing at 
the sink, as she tried the baked potatoes in the 
oven with a fork. "Why, there's an automo- 
bile stopping at the gate. I wonder what they 



want." 



THE REACTIONIST 97 

The father goes to the door; two men are 
carrying something in a lap robe ; they put it 
on the porch. 

Jimmie has come. 

It is two o'clock, and the dinner is cold. 
The mug of milk at Jimmie's plate is un- 
touched. A moaning, sobbing mother and a 
broken father stand beside the couch whereon 
a mangled little body, with agony-distorted 
face, makes mute protest. 

It is two o'clock, and the telephone rings 
in I-own-the-road-because-I-run-an-automo- 
bile's house. A friend has called him up to 
extend sympathy. The shock from running 
down a child is so great, you know. The 
murderer needs consolation, for accidents like 
this really unnerve a motorist! 



O Lord, how long? — how long? 



CHAPTER II 

WHY THE MOTION PICTURE SHOW 

Does any one suppose the motion picture 
show is the great educator it is said to be? Of 
course, lots of people think it is. Is it, how- 
ever? Not, if by education one means devel- 
oping mental capacity. If by education one 
means familiarity with things gained through 
no effort, then the motion picture show is a 
schoolroom. 

Will you keep this page before you long 
enough to make a little study of the matter? 

The usual argument for motion pictures as 
educational agencies contains a reference to 
the value of pictures in the training of chil- 
dren. We are told that from a picture the 
child gathers through the eye more informa- 
tion more quickly than by means of his other 
senses. That is the reason why the picture is 
valuable. 

There are two questions to ask in reply to 
this. 

First. Are we then to serve all knowledge 
9 8 



THE REACTIONIST 99 

to the child through pictures and let him be 
the passive party in his training? 

Second. If that be the right method of 
training children, does it necessarily apply to 
adults, and are adults instructed rightly by 
child methods? 

The reason the motion picture show is so 
popular is because it entertains and because 
the entertained is absolutely passive; its infor- 
mation is spoon-fed; no effort is necessary. 
One pays his nickel and sits down. 

Therein lies the curse of the motion picture 
show to-day. It calls for five cents and no 
mental exertion. It caters to the mental in- 
dolence of the age. It has in some respects 
the same effect as excessive reading of fiction. 
Librarians testify that fiction drunkards are 
seldom, if ever, interested in essays, history, 
biography, and science, because those studies 
call for mental exertion. Therefore the six 
best sellers are carried away before nine 
o'clock. 

As a developer of flabby mentality the mo- 
tion picture show cannot be surpassed. The 
ability to think to-day is none too prevalent, 
and the flip-flap of the motion picture weak- 
ens that ability more and more. 



ioo WHILLIKINS 

Instead of being educated through the eye 
we need the mental capacity to understand a 
thing when it is not illustrated. Education in 
plaid has no great merit. 

An editorial writer in one of our cater-to- 
the-minute magazines gives his dream of a 
motion picture church. He sees the kingdom 
of heaven come via the picture reel. The 
great unchurched mass is to be spiritually 
nourished by the gospel done in flip-flap. Sal- 
mon-colored lithographs will proclaim the 
presence of a dispensary of the good news for 
the new times. To put it in his words, "The 
pictures are to be a method to stimulate dulled 
imaginations, to feed the hunger of lively 
minds, to reach the hearts of both." 

What could be simpler? You pay your 
nickel and you leave your mind at home, — * 
resting; the motion picture will take care of 
your soul. If we can get education without 
mental exertion, why not get religion with the 
same mental passivity? 

The motion picture show is a craze, not an 
educator. It does for the mind what the auto- 
mobile does for the body. It carries it some- 
where else and back again, and the trip was 
purposeless. 



THE REACTIONIST 101 

I know a woozy, boozy, fuzzy little town, 
where the occupation of the people is to run 
home to meals between picture shows. The 
life of the town is correspondingly character- 
istic. If I were Barnum's ghost after mental 
inerts for show purposes, I would go there 
with a lasso. 

Just like many other things, the motion pic- 
ture show is good when very moderately in- 
dulged in, as is an issue of Puck. But when 
it is urged as the greatest educator and gospel- 
izer of the age it is time to do a little assaying 
in your own retort. 



WHILLIKINS— THE RELIGIOUS 



CHAPTER I 

ON DELIVERING THE CATTLE 

He was upwards of 90 years old. He came 
with fair vigor along the sidewalk, and 
stopped to talk. He was not "other worldly," 
but decidedly the opposite. He had had a 
fairish bundle of experience. He seemed to 
be one who for no small part of his life had 
tasted the sweets and the bitters, both offered 
and forbidden, and intended to pass out 
as he had stayed. 

"No; I'm no church member," he got far 
enough along to say. "I've nothin' agin 
churches, but, say, let me tell you somethin'. 
I used to deal in stock, — live stock. My name's 
Dipps; everybody knows me around here. 
Why I was here when the Indians were. I 
was not over so high." And he measured 
with his hand. "Yes. My name's Dipps; 
an' I used to buy cattle an' hogs, an', do ye 
know, I'd want to pay somethin' down some- 
times, so as to be sure to get the stock if the 

105 



106 WHILLIKINS 

market went up. Sometimes I'd buy of a 
church member, an' he wouldn't want to take 
any money down. Then, blast ye, if the mar- 
ket went up, he wouldn't deliver the cattle. 
Now what do you think of that? No; I'm 
no church member; an' I hain't got nothin' 
agin churches. My name's Dipps." 

The old man began to move on. "Every- 
body around here knows me," he left as his 
last assurance. 

I sat down on the steps in the September 
sun to ponder on the old pagan's speech. 
"Blast ye, if the market went up, he wouldn't 
deliver the cattle." 

There was no particular flavor of original- 
ity about the remark. I had heard it in one 
form or another as a criticism of church mem- 
bers. Of course, it was no excuse for that old 
man's, or any other man's irreligion. It can 
be said of just as many non-church members, 
as church members, "if the market goes up, 
they don't deliver the cattle." 

So I note it here, not to criticise the church 
member, but I would like to know what is the 
matter with the man who when the market 
goes up won't deliver the cattle? 

It is a case of the pot calling the skillet 



THE RELIGIOUS 107 

black when the non-churchman notes the un- 
willingness of the churchman to bring round 
the cattle. Both are black. 

Where do they get the color? 

Some exasperated dealer in live stock will 
say that they have had association with the 
Father of Lies. He may go so far as to say 
that he will not leave his chicken-coop un- 
locked in the same neighborhood where the 
man who won't deliver the cattle lives. Of 
course, all that he may say will be a pictur- 
esque expression of his annoyance because he 
did not get the cattle. 

Perhaps, if the market had gone down, he 
would have said that he did not buy the cat- 
tle. 

The whole proposition, disentangled from 
all circumstances, stews down to the question 
of whether a man's word should be as good 
as his bond, and whether, if all men's words 
were unreliable, anybody's bond would be 
good. 

At the basis of all life, — business, social, 
spiritual, even physical, — is the integrity of 
the human word. 

The ultimate for the human family is the 
condition where all men, when the market 



108 WHILLIKINS 

goes up, bring round the cattle in time for 
Dipps to get them loaded and on the next 
morning's market. 



CHAPTER II 

"give 'em the 'rousements" 

Three days before yesterday a Kentucky 
preacher was telling me his experience. 

It seems that he went to deliver his first 
sermons on his circulating charge. He 
preached one Sunday afternoon in a hill 
schoolhouse. As he was a new elephant, the 
people were three layers deep in the school- 
house, and were outside at the window in long 
lines, which reached back into the forest 
primeval. 

He stood up and in a simple, direct, quiet 
manner told them in about twenty minutes a 
fly-leaf page of the gospel. 

The service closed without subsequent 
doings; and the preacher saw as the people 
faded into the woods that he had made a blun- 
der somewhere. Mounting his horse he rode 
on to his next appointment. 

No one had said, "That was a good sermon, 

Parson." 

109 



no WHILLIKINS 

A week later the preacher met a man who 
had been sardined into the schoolhouse that 
day. He ventured to ask him what had been 
the cause of his silent treatment on Possom 
Trot. 

"Wall," — and the man shifted his quid over 
to the right, — "you see, our folks like the 
'rousements, and you did not exercise 'em." 

Now, that Kentucky preacher was young 
and he was there to win. Just four weeks 
later he went back to Possom Trot with the 
'rousements. He had not thought out any- 
thing to say. The fact was, as he confiden- 
tially told me, he left the fly-pages, as well as 
the body of the gospel, at home. He relied 
entirely on his calling-the-cows voice, and, 
being husky, on his ability to shuttle back and 
forth on the rostrum for forty-five minutes. 

It was a physical strain, but he did it. 
Then, like the man who holds a live wire, he 
found he could not let go; he could not close 
the meetin'. The people "just wouldn't go 
home," and more invitations to fried yellow- 
legs came than he could remember; and he 
had the organist, who was one of John Fox's 
girls in scarlet homespun, write them down 
for him. 



THE RELIGIOUS in 

All this happened in the hills, where the 
folks came a-horseback and a-foot, sunbon- 
neted, barefoot, and supple. 



The scene shifts. It is glorious autumn on 
the Avenue. The swinging doors of the gray- 
stone pile are open for the morning services. 
Now and then an auto deposits its china at the 
door and then sizzles around to the side street. 
The mission pews inside are filling. The or- 
gan is sighing. Far-off melodies mingle and, 
under the wizardry of the organist, come 
nearer, bursting at last from the full-throated 
pipes as a recessional of angels might sing 
upon getting home to heaven with a redeemed 
sinner. 

Not many hear this. There is too much 
bright glancing at friends and courtesying 
down the aisles. When piety presses its pants 
and goes to church it always forgets its ear- 
trumpet, but never its eye-glasses. 

The minister in due time arises to the oc- 
casion. It is said of him that he has never 
been seen to carry a scrap of paper with him 
into the pulpit, — no, not even a scrap. Sel- 
dom does he open the Bible. He seems to be 



ii2 WHILLIKINS 

a biblical phonograph; the 31,000 promises 
are on his cylinder. 

No pulpit essayist is he, but a real sermon- 
orator. His eagle eye blazes as it sweeps over 
the mission pews. Every pewholder feels 
that he is It. Now, the minister storms the 
bass end of the platform, then makes a swift 
run over the intermediate octaves, and the 
next instant he is stamping out arpeggios on 
the treble end. 

At last it is over. "Wasn't it wonderful?" 
say the people. The autos cough at the door. 
The china is repacked. Only the organist re- 
mains, hidden away at his keyboard, and soft 
melodies steal down the deserted aisles, as 
autumn vapors rise and drift through the for- 
est hollows when the sun is set. 

And God comes back to the gray stone pile 
on the Avenue. 

Query: What is the distance from the Ken- 
tucky hill schoolhouse meetin' to the Avenue 
grays tone service? 

Bring me my microscope. 



CHAPTER III 

BOSTON BUDDHISM OR BAKED BEANS 

Mary Baker Glover Eddy "pawsed on." 
She had to die to do it. Some say she did it 
years ago and her friends would not write her 
obituary, possibly because they were afraid 
that the demand for souvenir spoons and "Un- 
science and Disease" would decline. Others 
guess about her death date. Still others 
frankly say they do not know. 

Be that as it may, everybody now acknowl- 
edges that she has "pawsed on." 

There is something tragically comic in the 
fact that "to pawse on" Mrs. Eddy had to die. 
There was only one entrance door to eternal 
felicity, and it was very small and common- 
place. Mrs. Eddy fumbled with the latch 
for a good many years before she pressed down 
with her thumb and went in. 

I think that she would have been fumbling 
yet, if a dark gaunt figure had not reached 
over her shoulder and pushed down on her 
hand. 

"3 



ii 4 WHILLIKINS 

The pathos of Mrs. Eddy's "pawsing" lies 
in the fact that she left thousands behind who 
are still fumbling with the latch. 

No other cult has had so much free adver- 
tising as Christian Science, hence its growth. 
All the hammering has really sawed wood for 
the Christian Science fireplace; and the heat 
of its inglenook has been really very cozy and 
inviting to many persons. 

There is some speculation now as to the 
length of time before the cult will disintegrate. 
It will not disintegrate so long as anybody 
wonders in respect thereto. When we all 
quit talking about Christian Science then it 
will gently breathe its last. Therefore I do 
not look for its death for some time yet. 

I talk about it so that it may postpone its 
obsequies as long as possible. 

Some folks wish that Christian Science 
would close up shop. I do not care whether 
it does or not. To me the cult is more comic 
than Puck or Judge, 

Some people say in consternation, "Why, it 
is honeycombing the church !" That does not 
matter. There may be honey where there is 
a honeycomb, — if the bees are not drones. 



THE RELIGIOUS 115 

Anyway, the people who go out of the 
church for Christian Science do not advantage 
the church any before they leave, and when 
they leave they really compliment the church. 
They are dead brush in the Garden of the 
Lord. How thankful we ought to be that 
they have still enough sap in them to prune 
themselves out! 

I should perhaps have said why Christian 
Science is a comic supplement to me. So 
here goes. 

It denies matter, yet prays over festered 
matter. 

It claims to stand for the undeviled man, 
yet every Christian Scientist has been dispos- 
sessed of one or more devils. 

It says this is a world of sunlight, while it 
turns the button to get electric light by which 
to read Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of the 
Scriptures. 

It is the artful dodger of facts, in cap and 
bells. Who wouldn't laugh? Corner a 
Christian Scientist in an argument and (s)he 
will say serenely, "You do not grasp the spir- 
itual significance of the beautiful doctrine of 
the immateriality of the cosmos." 



n6 WHILLIKINS 

Fur all these and other reasons I put my 
hand over my pinched mouth when I see a 
Scientist. 

When the Christian Scientist is consistent 
(s) he will not be a Christian Scientist. (S)he 
will be a circle without a rim. So then, Chris- 
tian Science will live just as long as it takes 
for the rim to rub itself out. 

Meanwhile I will take baked beans. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PINK MINISTER 

The political parasite, who was the subject 
discussed in a preceding chapter, has his char- 
acter frankly announced by himself. He does 
not dissemble; there is nothing neutral about 
him. 

As I come now to write of another kind of 
parasite, I find it impossible to say as much of 
him. He is a counterfeit of the true minister, 
but such a poor imitation that he cannot even 
be credited with the quality of strength. Even 
his staunchest friend would not say that he 
was heroic in his attempts to be a parasite. 
He is a neutral, a wally-wobble, a hanger-on 
to the skirts of the church; he is a representa- 
tive of the thing Christianity dislikes, — neu- 
tral character. 

Christianity has a preference for definite- 
ness. It prefers the bright red of reality to 
the pink of make-believe. Hence I call the 
subject of this sketch pink, — the pink minis- 
ter. 

117 



n8 WHILLIKINS 

He is pastoral to the limit, that is, pastoral 
after a certain fashion. He delights to have 
some of the sisters call him "Dear Doctor All- 
wise," and remark that he does not neglect his 
parish for the pleasures of the study. 

He is the pastor of the feminine portion of 
his flock. He is often quite clerical in his ap- 
pearance, and is an ornament at any afternoon 
function. He possesses the gentle art of flat- 
tery, and, rather than have any sister take of- 
fense at his remarks, he will agree with Mrs. 
Weatherspoon that "Susan is a lovely child." 
He can insinuate himself into the confidence 
of any family mother by such a question as 
"Let's see; whom did Mary marry?" 

I would not have it inferred that the para- 
sitic minister is always feminine in his in- 
stincts. He is often one of the hale fellows, 
a man among men, — that is, among what are 
sometimes called men. 

He has his ear pointed toward the pew of 
his heaviest contributor; a precaution that en- 
ables him to avoid risks of utterance,— slips 
which might jeopardize his tenure on the pul- 
pit he occupies. As a consequence of his po- 
litical attitude, his sermons possess a certain 
mild and soothing quality, well described in 



THE RELIGIOUS 119 

an extract from a personal letter which I re- 
ceived a while ago. 

"His sermons are of the milk and honey 
type. He keeps in touch with John, Peter, 
and Paul, and pictures the Christ-life in the 
old way. But he carefully avoids anything 
pertaining to local conditions, — political or 
social, — and of course, touches no one's toes. 
So long as he keeps this up and gets his salary 
he will be happy." 

This sort of minister, — the pink type, — is 
not representative of the majority. He rep- 
resents a minority who degrade the profession. 
Many of them climb and attain preeminence 
and seeming influence. Some of them attain 
positions where ecclesiastical snooping and 
vaudeville become fine arts with them. 

Dear Doctor Allwise is looked upon as the 
highest authority in theology, a court of last 
resort for influence, and the honoring figure 
for all pink-ice receptions. 

If one has no large amount of individuality 
there are ample compensations for being a so- 
cial parasite with ecclesiastical affiliations. 

But the pink minister is here to go, — not to 
stay. 



CHAPTER V 

HOW ANY MINISTER MAY SUCCEED 

"I tell you, Mr. Winship, everybody thinks 
your sermons are just simply grand. They 
are all talking about them." 

Mrs. Middlebroad sat in the Winship home 
one evening about two months after, the Rev- 
erend Carroll Winship had accepted a call to 
the First Congregational Church of Flatville. 
She was president of the Ladies' Society, and 
had aspirations to be a leader also in the Flat- 
ville "Bunch," as certain ladies in that town 
were called by those less enamored of bridge 
and pale green ices served a la fantastic. 

Now the Reverend Carroll Winship had 
been preaching to the First Congregational 
pew holders for some eight Sundays and nat- 
urally he wondered how his sermons were 
appealing to the quasi-cultured attendants. 
True, after every sermon, as the people passed 
out, a respectable proportion delivered them- 
selves of the usual complimentary remarks. 

120 



THE RELIGIOUS 121 

But none had been to the pains to seek the new 
minister in his home and speak as Mrs. Mid- 
dlebroad had just done. 

Mr. Winship bowed his acknowledgment, 
while Mrs. Winship smiled at their visitor. 

".What would you suggest, Mr. Winship," 
continued Mrs. Middlebroad, "for the better 
doing of the Ladies' Society work? We have 
not been doing much recently, for we have 
been without a pastor for three or four 
months, and many of our ladies are unable to 
secure competent maids." 

Winship thought that he detected a 
slight emphasis upon the words "our ladies," 
whenever his visitor spoke of the female por- 
tion of his congregation. 

"It is yet a little too soon for me to advise 
just what should be done in the way of ex- 
tending the influence of our church," the min- 
ister replied; "but there is always one thing 
which may be reasonably expected, and that 
is that the members of the church shall be in 
their pews at the regular services. There is 
little that can be done outside until all who 
are inside the church are interested, — and that 
to the extent of being present at the services." 

"What you say is quite true," purred Mrs. 



122 WHILLIKINS 

Middlebroad. "Our attendance is not as 
large as it should be. Mr. Tompkins, our 
former pastor, alienated a great many of our 
members by his conduct, you see. Of course 
I do not wish to say a word about our former 
minister, and I hope you will not misunder- 
stand me." 

Winship studied his visitor for a moment 
before he remarked: "I always wish the 
president of the Ladies' Society to be inter- 
ested ; I would like her to be a regular attend- 
ant at the services to welcome newcomers and 
to open the way of approach to strangers and 
the non-churchgoers of the community. The 
church exists for the service of the outsiders 
as well as of the insiders. There must be a 
steady incoming from the population of the 
town or the church will decline in influence." 

"Of course, Mr. Winship, you have not been 
here long enough to know the character of our 
population," continued the president of the 
Ladies' Society. "There are a good many 
people to whom the Congregational Church 
does not appeal. The Methodists and Chris- 
tians have done a big work among such per- 
sons. But we have some of the best people in 
our church. Mr. Smithkins of the Flatville 



THE RELIGIOUS 123 

State Bank is one of our best contributors, 
though not a member. He is now abroad. 
Mrs. Smithkins is a lovely woman and enter- 
tains lavishly. Then there are the Mudsons. 
Mr. Mudson is a very able lawyer and con- 
trols to a great extent in Flatville politics. 
There are several merchants on Eastern Ave- 
nue who are members of our church, — or, at 
least, their families are. I suppose our church 
represents more wealth than any other church 
here, though we do not have a large member- 
ship." 

Having thus given what she considered to be 
an impressive enumeration of some of the aris- 
tocratic members of the church, Mrs. Middle- 
broad leaned back in her chair and beamed at 
Mrs. Winship. 

"Yes, I was talking to Mr. Evans Woodbe 
to-day in his office. He told me that Eastern 
Avenue was well represented in the church. 
But," said the minister, "when I asked him 
why I had not seen more of the business men 
at church, he replied that their business duties 
were so heavy that they could not always at- 
tend. I do not like that attitude toward the 
church." 

"Well, you see, Mr. Winship," apologetic- 



124 WHILLIKINS 

ally gurgled Mrs. Middlebroad, "it is with 
our men somewhat as it is with our ladies. 
The men are busy in their stores and offices, 
and our ladies are unable to get competent 
maids. I know that with your excellent ser- 
mons we shall get on nicely, if you will also 
keep encouraging our people. You will feel 
the bad effects of Mr. Tompkins' pastorate for 
some time; but we shall all soon forget that. 
I never criticise ministers, but Mr. Tompkins 
was really very indiscreet. I must be going 
now or Mr. Middlebroad will be sending 
Churley after me. I do hope that you will 
get acquainted with Churley. He is a dear 
boy." 

With this remark Mrs. Middlebroad arose 
to go, remarking at the door that the ladies 
were studying Browning once a month, and 
that she hoped they might expect Mr. Win- 
ship to talk to them on the poet a little 
later. 

When the door had closed the minister went 
to his study, and Mrs. Winship went on with 
her interrupted reading. Two hours later, 
when Mr. Winship was locking up the house 
for the night, he remarked, "Mrs. Middle- 
broad does not come to church very often her- 



THE RELIGIOUS 125 

self. I wonder if she cannot find a competent 
maid." 

As I have said, this call of Mrs. Middle- 
broad was a few weeks after the Winships 
had taken up their residence in Flatville. I 
have no intention here of telling the story of 
their Flatville ministry. That story will be 
told another time. It suffices here to say that 
about two years later the Winships, with huge 
satisfaction, saw Flatville fade into the monot- 
onous landscape behind them as they looked 
from the rear of the Northwestern Limited. 

The two years had been more or less stren- 
uous and weariful. Politics and business and 
no maids had made the Reverend Winship's 
labors largely unfruitful. 

When Winship's friends heard of his re- 
moval from the Flatville pastorate some of 
them said that he had failed when he might 
just as well have succeeded. Some were frank 
enough to say that his asinine proclivities in 
that direction were too pronounced. They 
said that he lacked tact. They said that if he 
had not been so interested in civic righteous- 
ness and more interested in his own ecclesiasti- 
cal future the heavy contributors would not 
have withdrawn their support, — that Lawyer 



126 WHILLIKINS 

Mudson and Deacon Ratsmutt would not have 
lined up the "bunch" against him. 

I do not know that Reverend Winship cared 
very much what his friends thought. I do 
know, being perhaps nearer to him than any- 
other of his friends, that he was born anew 
when Flatville faded into the monotonous dis- 
tance. And, knowing him as I do, I feel my- 
self qualified to testify to the kind of man Win- 
ship is. He hates pretense and pious putty, 
prigs and snobbery. He has never felt 
"called" to eat pale green ices at a session of 
the Browning Society of "our ladies." He 
feels that if he has any place in the ministry 
it is to preach the gospel of simplicity and sin- 
cerity, — the virile gospel of the Nazarene. 
He feels justified in demanding of business 
men a first interest in the church of Christ, 
which interest does not neglect business as an 
instrument of service. 

Thinking as he does, Winship speaks his 
thoughts. It was that which led to his leav- 
ing Flatville. But he believes that it is bet- 
ter to have a year of self-respecting failure 
than a decade of Flatville success. From 
which I infer that he knows how he might 
have succeeded in Flatville. From repeated 



THE RELIGIOUS 127 

conversations with Reverend Winship I have 
concluded that any minister may succeed in 
any parish to which he may happen to be 
called. 

The average church does not call a minister 
that it may be ministered unto in the sense of 
true service. The greatest service that can be 
rendered any person is a stimulation and in- 
spiration to sincerity of thought and of action. 
True service of a church is of this sort. But 
the average church does not wish stimulation ; 
it does not wish to hear that it is failing; it 
wishes to have its failures hidden beneath flat- 
tery in private conversation and rhetoric in the 
pulpit. 

Had the Reverend Winship possessed the 
gentle art of flattery instead of uncouth blunt- 
ness of expression, the Congregational Church 
of Flatville would have increased his salary 
the first year. True, the pews might not have 
been filled; but, with the sort where Winship 
found himself, that is secondary to a secure 
sense of self-complacency. 

The gentle art of flattery is, then, one of the 
greatest assets for ministerial success; intel- 
lectual and spiritual qualities should not be 
mentioned in comparison. I do not say that 



128 WHILLIKINS 

a minister may not succeed without this art, — 
sometimes, but I do say that he will always 
succeed with it. 

What will do more to keep the favor of the 
heavy contributor, — whose unsavory private 
life is a matter of public comment, — than a 
little cold cream applied to the welts raised 
by the criticism of the community, especially 
when it is the pastor of the heavy contributor 
who thus solicitously acts as a good Samari- 
tan? 

What will keep the ladies of the church so 
loyal to Mr. Winship as frequent pulpit ref- 
erences to "our dear women who are devoting 
their time so largely to the work of the so- 
ciety?" 

What will manage old Deacon Ratsmutt so 
easily as an oft-assumed attitude of deference 
to his piety and orthodoxy? 

And Lawyer Mudson — Well, he pretends 
to be a shrewd one, but any minister can, by 
deft insinuations as to the doubtful policies of 
Mudson's opponents, keep said Mudson in his 
pew. 

Now, of course, all this cannot be accom- 
plished if the minister is so tactless as to al- 
ways tell the truth. He need not lie, but he 



THE RELIGIOUS 129 

should refrain from being positive in truth 
utterance. Still, what place has truth in com- 
parison with ecclesiastical success? Truth is 
often unpalatable; success comes soonest from 
honeyed lingo. Truth, of course, sees things 
as they are; in the ministry success follows 
soonest when the minister sees things as they 
are not. 

Let no one suppose that some dear sister suf- 
fering from social eczema wishes to be as- 
sured that she needs a blood purifier. Let no 
one suppose that those addicted to culturine 
wish to have a definition of culture shouted 
out in public congregation. No! When I 
put down here directions how invariably to 
succeed as a minister I do not expect the min- 
ister to be so in love with the truth that he can- 
not flirt a little with fiction. 

If a minister wishes to be popular, he must 
be willing to pay the price. The price is a 
certain irregularity in his apparent four-square 
character. I do not say that he must sell him- 
self to falsehood. But he must not be too ar- 
dent a disciple of oft-proclaimed truth. The 
recipe for success in the ministry is inclusive 
of the suggestion: give a certain prominence 
to the adaptability of the gospel to the first 



130 WHILLIKINS 

three centuries, but do not dwell too largely 
nor too often on what religion demands of the 
twentieth century. 

After his failure with the Flatville "bunch," 
Winship expressed the greatest devotion to the 
church of Christ. He remained loyal to the 
evangelical truth of the gospel. He made no 
great defense of himself, but said frankly that 
he was glad that he had withstood the tempta- 
tion to pay the price of success in Flatville. 

Too many ministers do pay the price. The 
ministry for such becomes the profession of 
ecclesiastical vaudeville. 

Not long ago a man of wide experience and 
of a deeply spiritual nature wrote to me the 
following words: "I say in all love and with 
appreciation for all churches that organized 
religion seems to be sick, — that is, not religion, 
but the organizations that seek to represent it. 
Instead of being aggressive and truly the lead- 
ers in art, literature, science, and service, too 
often I find the organizations apologetic and 
on the defensive. They are more or less suc- 
cessful attachments to life rather than expres- 
sions of life." 

Any minister who is willing to devote time 
to the mastery of the gentle art of flattery can 



THE RELIGIOUS 131 

succeed in any pulpit to-day. That art assures 
him bigger salary, popularity, and an after- 
dinner-coffee time all the year 'round. 

Let no young minister consider the minis- 
try a successless vocation. If it is success he 
is after, he can achieve it there, — as every- 
where else, — by paying the price. 



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